


I'm In Heaven, Doc (Gene Roe x Reader)

by willowsfavor



Category: Band of Brothers, HBO War
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Band Of Brothers - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluffy Ending, HBO War - Freeform, IDAEGJ???? WHAt DO U TAG THINGS!!!!!1, im sorry yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 15:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9554525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowsfavor/pseuds/willowsfavor
Summary: The music stopped and you couldn’t pinpoint where it had come from until it started up again. It was a different tune this time, one you hadn’t ever heard him whistle before. Your heart hammered in your chest and your feet couldn’t establish hold. When the whistling faded again, you forced yourself to walk. Calm. Collected. Poised. You tried to remember those things, though they were never ideals you had thought around him before. You were goofy around him. You cracked jokes to garner a smile, which you saw as a mediocre success. Getting him to laugh was the goal.You hadn’t noticed that you had broken into a run, flying down the path that the two of you had stomped together after more than ten years of making it your own. It made sense that he was down here, but what didn’t make sense was why he hadn’t come to see you first.You burst into the clearing where the river met the bank. You had spent most of your time here. It felt like you’d never left.“Gene?”No response. He was nowhere to be seen. You were certainly crazy now for your own mind to fabricate your old best friend’s whistling-





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I wrote this forever ago and just wanted to post it somewhere so I wouldn't lose it. Hope y'all enjoy!

The muggy Louisiana heat settled on your flesh as your tramped through Morgan City limits. The sidewalk beneath your feet could’ve fried eggs better than your stove, and the humidity that hung in the air that morning could have been cut with a knife. Every breath you took felt thick. The air crackled with unease. Though no clouds had floated through yet, you knew a storm would be coming that afternoon. This was how the South’s weather operated. You could always count on blaring sunshine from dawn until noon, and then the rain would pound away at your roof until the sun began to set.

It made for beautiful sunsets, not that you had time to admire them.

You double checked the brown leather bag slung across your hip for the keys to the schoolhouse at tge edge of town. It was too early for school to begin just yet—parents still needed their children for work in the factories and fields—but you and a few of the other new schoolteachers decided to get together and work on your syllabuses. There was state regulation, but it left enough wiggle room to make you sweat, nervous that the superintendent or principal would judge your inexperience and send you out the door. Jobs that did not involve factory or farm work were hard to come by these days.

The sun rose over the Atchafalaya River and the bayou behind it. Cars hobbled down the unusually silent streets. Once filled with reckless boys running up and down the street, now all was silent. There was too much work and war to be had. Now, as you wiped the back of your neck with your hand, you could only find old men and women gossiping with each other on creaky porches. A few were rocking in rocking chairs outside of the General Store that they never seemed to buy anything from. None of them seemed to acknowledge the heat either—it was like they were immune to it. It got humid in Alabama too, you thought, but not like this.

In the distance, boats bobbed up and down and occasionally bumped the harbor dock, bouncing back and forth. You had grown up in Alabama, your father being a soybean farmer, but your family lost the farm after the economy crashed. After that? You moved around a lot, but finally settled with your mother’s parents in Louisiana. Your mother worked a desk job secured by her father, and your father forwent his pride and joined a fishing crew until he could start up another soybean farm.

You jiggled the keys in the lock. It resisted opening. You leaned up against the door, pushing it into place until you heard a click, signifying the unlock. It swung open with a hiss of indignation, but you were successful nonetheless. None of the other girls had wanted to get up early enough to unlock it, but you wanted to avoid as much heat as possible. Your curls would not be as neat as the others’; you hadn’t had time to perfect them after sleeping on them all night, but it didn’t matter. You had gone through far worse in the Pacific. In fact, you found it difficult to sit still for such long hours, first studying the lessons of your predecessors and then filling in where needed in accounting for the fishing crews.

The school-house only had a few rooms. You taught young children and so, for the most part, they could be combined into various age groups. It was dreary and white, with paint chipping on the outside, but the inside was as colorful as one of the particularly young teachers would allow. She had spent days working on an orchard of apple trees that ran from one end of the house to the other. During the school year, she promised, the children would get to paint the apples.

You spent the rest of that afternoon daydreaming. The rain hitting the roof brought you back to your brief service as a nurse in the Pacific before you were cycled out. Or at least that was what you told your parents. After a soldier with particularly brutal wounds died in your arms, you had a panic attack. A month later, marking your second year on duty, you were sent back home.

You realized you wouldn’t get much done that day, nor much socializing, but you didn’t mind. Instead of drawing up lesson plans, you drew the faces of the men you could remember all along the edges of the paper. None of the other girls, caught up in their talk about “the boys overseas” seemed to notice. They had stopped questioning you about what it was like to be a nurse when they realized you wouldn’t give up much. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to talk about it, you just didn’t even know where to begin. And even if you did, how could you describe the boys missing their legs? Or an arm? Or both? Or the boy that had only been trying to help one of his injured comrades, only to take a bullet right behind his eyes and lose his vision, but not his life. That wasn’t even the worst of it; the worst was the psychological effects.

No, it didn’t seem right to subject them to that.

Often you lied and said you saw nothing much at all, but you weren’t exactly the same as you had been before. Every time one of the boys under your care died, you drew his face over and over again in your journal, committing it to memory. It was an odd way of coping. If they lost an ear, you gave them the ear back. If their hair had been burned off, you drew it three or four different ways to make sure it looked like it suited him. If you thought one was particularly good, you entertained the idea of sending it back with his parents, but you never did.

And sometimes, when you were sitting in your cot, legs tucked underneath you, you would draw his face over and over again, trying to make sure you didn’t forget. He was all the way in Europe, saving lives you imagined, but that didn’t ease your anxious mind. By then he could have died a thousand different ways. Still, even now as you found yourself sketching the outline of his face, you figured a telegraph could come in any day now. He sent scarce few letters to his mother, letters that she read aloud to you with tears running down her plump cheeks. She hadn’t heard from him in six months and she was as much a worrier as you were.

When the rain tapered off and the sun began to set, you excused yourself. The girls liked to grab dinner in town and chat around the fireplace at the General Store, as the elderly population had retreated back home, but you liked to keep your parents company. You were, after all, their only child. After losing two before you and one after, you felt guilty whenever you spent too much time away from them. You knew it wasn’t your responsibility to make them happy, but it was your duty as their daughter to aid them in whatever way you could. That included dinner.

The week passed slowly, just like the war. Hitler had died in April; Germany had surrendered in May. Japan was still clinging to life, and thus the boys in Europe were being held until further notice. There was speculation that they would all be transferred to the Pacific Theater, much to your horror, though some hoped and prayed they would only be kept in England for a short while before being sent back. You didn’t know what to think. You tried not to dwell on it too much, it only made you anxious, restless, and sleepless. You had been an incredibly happy-go-lucky person before the war, and you still were at times, but you felt bogged down by the same sense of dutiful misery that everyone else carried around. No one had time to be happy until the boys were home.

The first day of August struck suddenly and without warning in both time and setting. A storm raged throughout the morning, afternoon, and evening, keeping you cooped up inside the rickety, two-story house. None of you had expected a morning storm, and thus you were scrambling like chickens without heads, slamming shutters closed and locking the doors in place until it passed. It was a waiting game. Your mother, agitated and fidgety, spent the day turning the house over trying to clean. You chased after her, helpless in your endeavors to help but eager nonetheless, until her obsessive nature wore you out. You surrendered and hid in your room for the evening, a small pile of rolls, apples, and grilled fish on a plate next to your bed. You read mostly, ignoring the stack of work you needed to get done. You yourself felt too restless for your own good. Not even your book grabbed your attention, and you desperately wished you could be outside. It was only on the days when you couldn’t be outside that you wanted to be, but you supposed that was life. You weren’t sure when you went to bed that night, but it was well past what was normal for you. You couldn’t sleep. Your food went untouched too.

When you woke the next morning, whatever plaguing you the night before seemed to have lifted. You head felt clearer as the clouds drifted away. “Dreary days always lead to a dreary mind,” you commented over breakfast.

“Have you been working on your syllabus, darling?” Your mother’s gentle, but firm tone from the kitchen sink made you purse your lips.

“Mhm,” you lied.

“The principal requires it turned in next week so he can look it over.”

“Yeah. I remember that,” you replied absentmindedly. You found it difficult to focus sometimes. You hated to admit that your two-year stint in the Solomons had left such a profound impact on you; you hadn’t seen half the shit the boys had. But that didn’t mean it didn’t bother you. Your life felt trivial now. It lacked meaning. You tried not to dwell on it, but at the same time you weren’t sure how you were supposed to be adjusting. You had no other girl to compare yourself to here. Part of you never wanted to go back, but the other part might jump at the chance to continue sewing up wounds as long as it meant you were contributing.

Your mother didn’t stop you when you pulled on your blue floral frock and tied on the muddied boots (your favorite ones, the ones that ran just past your ankle) you used to stomp around in the forest next to the river. Your feet hadn’t grown in years. You didn’t wear them as much as you used to, not since the war started anyway. It felt a little nostalgic to pull them on.

You hadn’t been out there in three years, if not more. The last time you were out there was to sit in peace before you left for training for the Pacific, and the time before that was when Eugene told you that he was enlisting in the Airborne. You thought you were going to kill him, or that you might cry, but instead you told him “not to get killed” and “I’ll see ya when you get back”. And you laughed with him. You tried to compete to see who could make their rock skip the most down the river like you did when you were twelve. He was somber the entire time, like his mind was already in training, and you pretended like you didn’t notice. Eugene Roe was the first friend you’d made in Louisiana.

Now you really hated to be back. The tire-swing he and his brothers made for the two of you when you were fifteen had been swept away after a particularly strong storm. The tree-fort you had tried and failed to make was still somehow there, though most of it had crashed in. You had always been busy back then trying to make something or come up with some new game or a new rule to a game to make it fun again. But as you grew older it became less frequent. Often you met up and waded through the water, saying very little at all. Or if you did, it was a quick joke on your behalf. Sometimes you kicked water at him when he was particularly mute, and sometimes he caught a crayfish and threatened you with it. Neither of those situations ever ended well. You sent him home soaking wet one day in particular and his mother rewarded you with a handshake when you dared enter her house a few days later.

You stumbled through each memory, forgetting the scenery but remembering his facial expressions. The grimace on his face as he lay muddied in the shallow edge of the river. The laughter in his eyes when he threw a dead fish at your feet and you danced a panicked jig to get around it. He was a serious boy, but if you provoked him enough you could elicit some sort of retaliation from him. Before he threw the dead fish at you, you’d smeared moss on his arm. He was your brother—he was your favorite person to do nothing at all with.

The path grew sandier, full of particularly sharp pebbles as you aimlessly wandered toward the river’s edge. You were surrounded by the faint sound of young, summer birds carrying their tunes from one end of the mossy, swamp-like forest to the other. You paused to listen, but all but one singing bird died down after a moment. The tune was sharp and variated from the others, causing you to hesitate. It sounded familiar. It wasn’t a bird.

The music stopped and you couldn’t pinpoint where it had come from until it started up again. It was a different tune this time, one you hadn’t ever heard him whistle before. Your heart hammered in your chest and your feet couldn’t establish hold. When the whistling faded again, you forced yourself to walk. Calm. Collected. Poised. You tried to remember those things, though they were never ideals you had thought around him before. You were goofy around him. You cracked jokes to garner a smile, which you saw as a mediocre success. Getting him to laugh was the goal.

You hadn’t noticed that you had broken into a run, flying down the path that the two of you had stomped together after more than ten years of making it your own. It made sense that he was down here, but what didn’t make sense was why he hadn’t come to see you first.

You burst into the clearing where the river met the bank. You had spent most of your time here. It felt like you’d never left.

“Gene?”

No response. He was nowhere to be seen. You were certainly crazy now for your own mind to fabricate your old best friend’s whistling-

“Hey, Y/N,”

You spooked, nearly jumping half out of your skin as you turned around to face the sheepish looking boy behind you.

“Hey, hey. I didn’t mean to scare you. Well. I almost did. I planned on it. But then you looked so sad th-“

You didn’t let him finish the sentence. You ran straight into his arms, pulling him as close as your arms would allow. He didn’t react at first, startled by the affection. It took him a moment to squeeze you back, chuckling low against your hair. When you finally pulled away, you kicked the toe of your boot into his and said, “Why the hell did ya stop writing your mother?”

Eugene looked a little flabbergasted, as if he had expected you to say something else. “It’s war, you know. I wrote her just after Bastogne. She got that one, didn’t she?”

You nodded.

“Well, I was so busy after that. And we moved around so much.”

“When did you get home?”

“Yesterday. I was plannin’ on coming to see your family, but the weather.”

Satisfied, you drew your arms across your chest and rolled a pebble around beneath the sole of your shoe. “Sorry. I’m glad to see you.”

“I wrote you a couple of letters too, but I just never sent ‘em.”

“Really?” You grinned, looking him up and down as if he would have them on him. “What were they about?”

It took him a minute to answer. You prodded him with your shoe again. Sometimes he would drift off, thinking about something, but this didn’t seem like one of those moments. He rubbed his neck with his hand and acknowledge you with a huff of annoyance.

“It was always right before or after something dire. They always sounded so ridiculous that I never sent ‘em.”

“Ridiculous?”

“Plein de sève. Sappy.”

“Ah.” You masked the sudden explosion of emotion in your chest behind a crooked smile. “Did you want me to tell Ms. Aileen Thomas that you loved her more than a tick loves a hound dog?”

“No, I was gonna tell you not to miss me so much after I died heroically saving a man’s life,” Gene replied, a hint of sarcasm laced behind his words as his mouth twitched into the smallest of smiles.

You shook your head and started walking back up the path, waving your hand behind you. “I have many boys sending me letters, I promise I wouldn’t have missed you that much.”

He followed after you, and curse his longer legs, because he caught up with your fast walking faster than you would’ve liked. “Hey, wait a second,” the medic called after you, reaching for your forearm. The second you felt his fingers wrap around your arm, you twisted around with a grin on your face and laughter caught in your throat. You had meant to start a childish shoving match with him, but the dire, drawn look on his face stopped you in your tracks.

“That wasn’t what I wrote,” Eugene corrected.

“I didn’t think it was,” was your ghost of a reply. “Sorry I didn’t write you. I couldn’t bare it.”

“That’s alright.”

He pressed his hand firmly in the small of your back and leaned in. You instinctively reached to cup the side of his face with your hand, guiding his lips toward your own. You didn’t remember the first time you had thought about kissing him, but you kicked past you for ever thinking your imagination could live up to what you were experiencing. You were both emotionally charged, deprived, and in desperate need of physical connection and comfort.

When you finally pulled away, he reached for your face again, running his thumb along your cheekbone. “You know what’s funny? I walked down here because I was too nervous to go see you. C'était chance, lucky me.”


End file.
